If Sherlock Holmes dies too, who will you have then?
by Firebugs
Summary: When John beats Sherlock in the mortuary, it all goes way, way too far. Warning: Don't read this fic if you don't think John-hits-Sherlock is a big deal! In TLD I was astonished by John beating Sherlock like that. What John does is unforgivable. As a doctor he knows best how vulnerable the human body actually is. Violence is always wrong as it comes with horrifying consequences.
1. Chapter 1

Slapping. Beating. Kicking.

His palm, his fist, his feet, bash against the man in front of him, over and over. He never feels the counterforce, nor even the flesh and bone of a living human being. All he feels was the grief, the guilt and the rage burning up, surging through him, and gushing out onto…whoever—whatever it is.

His wife is dead because of his best friend.

Mary is dead because of Sherlock.

He forgets where he is or what he is. He is nothing but rage. He keeps on kicking, trampling upon the thing beneath his feet, until he hears the sound of bones breaking.

No, he doesn't hear it. He doesn't hear anything except the boiling blood pumping through his veins.

Somebody tries to drag him backwards.

"Stop it! You're hurting him!" a female voice screams.

The scream pierces through him like an ice blade, quenching the burning rage inside of him, his reason slowly surfacing, his senses gradually kicking in.

He sees it. He sees Sherlock crouching on the floor, not moving, a trickle of blood woozing from the corner of his mouth into the pool of it underneath his head.

"Oh my god," Faith gasps.

John stands there, his muscles tightened and his limbs quivering due to the outburst. His fists and feet throbbing to remind him of how brutal the impact was, but it's nothing compared to the twinge in his heart that his worst fear may have come true.

He KILLS Sherlock?

"I'll get help," panic is obvious in Faith's voice as she pushes past her indifferent father and dashed out of the mortuary.

John's numbed feet pull him towards Sherlock, knees dropping to the floor beside him, shaky hands reaching for Sherlock's pulse. It's weak, but there, but he's not breathing. John can't tell whether it's fear or guilt that's pushing his heart into his stomach. "I'm sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry…" he hears himself mumbling.

Sherlock's eyes snap right open just as the doctors crack into the room. He wheezes horribly for oxygen but choking on blood, as groans form rapidly in his throat. Startled and relieved, John reaches out a hand, "Sherlock, I—"

He freezes at Sherlock's reactions, hand suspending in mid-air. Sherlock winces at John's motion. His head reflexively tilts backwards to open his airway as his collapsed lungs struggle to suck in air. Though in agony, his entire body trembles in an attempt to pull away from John. His eyes are wide with tears, the usual glitter replaced by pain and fear.

Sherlock is afraid of him.

John fixes his stare on the injured human being, which he was long familiar with in Afghanistan. He saw them every day. He saw wounds to heal, lives to save, and pain to ease. And no matter what, he did the best he could to heal and to save lives, as the oath asked him to. As a soldier he did take lives, but only to save many more. And there was one thing that never changed—the untrimmed, absolute trust in their eyes, trust with their lives in the doctors, and it kept him going, living with the lives he'd taken. It was a sense of fulfillment that he was what he'd swore to be in medical school.

He doesn't see it in Sherlock's eyes. What he sees is simply an injured life, trying to escape from the hands that hurt him.

"Move!" John springs to his feet at the command, to leave space for the doctor and nurses. They are stripping away clothing, fastening an oxygen mask, starting an IV and attaching monitors, and then lift Sherlock onto the awaiting gurney. At the painful movement, Sherlock gasps and lets out a low whine behind the oxygen mask. Though he's rapidly losing consciousness, his eyes catch John's once again.

And this time, John sees something else in those eyes—guilt, deeper than his own, as tears stream down Sherlock's cheeks, before his eyes fall shut and he is whisked away.


	2. Chapter 2

"I really hit him Greg, hit him hard."

John sits in the interrogation room, folding and unfolding his right hand. The knuckles are bruising red, the numb ache reminding him of his outburst, of Sherlock bleeding on the floor, and the look in his eyes.

"This isn't a hit. This is physical assault," Lestrade's voice is wrapped in disbelief and concern.

"I'm pretty sure Sherlock won't press charges," John says to his hands.

Lestrade gapes at him.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—" John looks up, then away, shaking his head. "I ju—I don't know what's wrong with me, and I'm so, so sorry. Am—am I under arrest?"

"Well I could arrest you, but—I'm talking to you as a friend," Lestrade says genuinely. "Look, I know you're going through a lot, mate, but I really don't understand—how could you do it, to Sherlock? How could you even DO IT?"

John remains silent. He's already asked himself the question a thousand times but can't seem to find the answer. Lestrade tilts his head trying to catch John's eyes but fails, and then reclines back in his seat. He is of course, shocked hearing that John had beaten Sherlock to gravely injured. He was there when Mary died. He knows how much it's been for john and he understands that John blames Sherlock for Mary's death, but he never know that it would get this far. This is crime, a crime that no doctor should ever commit. And he takes up the cudgel for Sherlock, whom has been a great man ever since he met him, and is becoming a good one with John and Mary and Rosie.

"I'm sorry," John has said it so many times that the word no longer means anything, but what does it matter when he is long deluged in guilt of which he can't see a way out.

"Sorry won't help," Lestrade sighs.

John looks up and Mary is leaning against the concrete wall of the room. He meets her gaze, "Are you mad at me?"

"No, no. I'm just disappointed," Mary answers plainly.

"I am, a bit, yes," Lestrade's voice pulls him back to reality.

The DI seems slightly surprised by the blunt question but answers still. When John looks to the wall again Mary is gone.

He lowers his head and concentrates on his bruised hand. Inside he feels empty, like someone has torn out all his insides, like what he felt when Mary died in his arms, but unlike then this is not hurting, just hollow, except there's something that keeps his heart hanging in his throat and beating faster and faster that it gets hard to breathe. He fails to figure out what that is until—

 _If Sherlock Holmes dies too, who will you have then?_

The voice, Mrs Hudson's voice, seems to come from somewhere remote, and begins to echo around the room, or in his head. It's hard to tell the difference. It's getting more intense by every resound that John has to screw his eyes shut and press his hands into his ears.

The beeping of Lestrade's phone extinguishes all the voices and as if splits John's head in half, leaving him panting in sweat.

Lestrade clicks on the phone screen and brings it to his ear, "Hello?"

All of John's focus is on the DI's face. Compared with the torturing hallucinations, the last thing he wants is to face the cruel reality.

Lestrade's brows unfurrow as he nods and exhale in relief, "Good, good. On our way."

John has never been so relieved in his life that he nearly smiles. Lestrade stands up with a reassuring look, "He's out of surgery. Let's go."

In the car John cannot bring to joy that Sherlock is alive. Disturbing details of Sherlock's injuries begin to kick in. he tries to figure out how bad it is by recalling the assault, but doing so makes his limbs cramp all over again as a stronger wave of guilt rolls over him.

They meet Sherlock's attending at the nurse station. She's still dressed in her surgical gown and hat, and looks up from the chart as Lestrade calls her, "Dr Grey, this is John Watson."

"How is he?" the words slip right out.

"He's not out of the woods yet," Dr Grey sounds somewhat indifferent, looking John over. "He had four fractured ribs which led to haemothorax and tension pnuemothorax. His spleen had ruptured, and as the result of massive blood loss he coded on the table for over five minutes, so we had to remove his spleen. His blood toxicity has shown over 20 different drugs. Both of his kidneys are shutting down and we've started him on dialysis, but it could be too late. I'm sorry."

"Jesus," John puts his face in his hands for a moment. "Can I—can I see him?"

"I'm afraid not," Dr Grey states. "The patient is suspected to have been physically assaulted. Contact is not allowed between the suspect and the victim. That's for protection of the patient."

John's heart twists at the word 'victim', and no one knows better than himself that he's the criminal, not a suspect.

"What if under the surveillance of the police?" Lestrade bargains. "Please, Sherlock is his friend."

For a second Dr Grey widens her eyes with surprise. Then she nods and looks away. "Fine. Follow me."

They leave the nurse station and goes through the waiting area, stopping before the long narrow corridor of the ICU. "Second room on your left," Dr Grey gives Lestrade a warning look. "He's only allowed to look at the patient. Keep him out of the room."

"Thank you," John nods to her politely.

"Just one thing, personally," she adds and John turns to look at her. "You're a doctor too, and I'm surprised that one of us could ever do this to his friend, to any human being, to be honest." She turns to leave.

John retract his eyes from her furthering blue figure as they stop by the window, and looks into the room, and sees Sherlock lying unconscious, pale as the white dotted hospital gown that disappears into the dark blue blanket at his waist. Wires stuck out of the gown ending up into a 6-lead heart monitor. The central line in his shoulder is connected to morphine and other medications and two thick tubes goes into his right arm, delivering blood between his body and the dialyser. A nasal cannel is placed across his bruised and slightly swollen face. And those are just the visible ones of all sorts of tubes that are keeping him alive.

John finds himself subconsciously going over every piece of medical knowledge about the myriad of machines and wires and tubes which he is only way too familiar with. Being able to tell how alive a patient is from a heart monitor was a thrilling wonder in medical school, but at the moment ONLY being able to tell that Sherlock is alive through the screen is desperate. John presses his head against the glass, then his forehead, yearning to feel the warmth of Sherlock instead of the coldness of the glass. In a trance he feels the urge to treat this patient, to heal the injuries and to soothe his pain, like what he always felt as a doctor. He fixes his stare on the patient's face. Sherlock's eyes are peacefully closed, but John remembers the tears in them, pain, fear and the last-moment guilt.

 _Yeah, guilt. I should be the one felling guilt. I'm not a doctor. I'm a criminal. I hurt people instead of healing them. I nearly killed my best friend._

"John?" Lestrade says in a soft voice, almost inaudible, but pulls John out of his thoughts. "Can I take you home?"

John nods, and takes one last look at Sherlock, letting yet another swell of guilt flush over himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes:** In this chapter John is somehow aware of a few critical details of Sherlock's plans in TRF and HLV. But in the show it's not his fault when he doesn't know.

"I'm giving you a case, Sherlock, might be the hardest case of your career."

At first Mary's voice feels like a sharp blade shredding John's heart into pieces, if it wasn't already in pieces, his late guilt engulfed in a paroxysm of grief. He craved for her voice, her lips, the smell of her skin, for her lying with him and him touching her with one move of a finger. But it's all gone. Now she is no more than a cluster of recorded digits or the delirious hallucination that he can't help clinging to.

John sits still in his armchair, with Mrs Hudson by his side, eyes fixed on the low-quality image of Mary's face, listening and indulging in her long-lost voice.

He straightens up at the words "save John Watson," concentrating on what exactly she's saying. "The only way to save John, is to make him save you."

John's stomach twists inside out. _I save Sherlock from what?_ He questions under his quickened breath. _From myself?_

'Go and pick a fight with a bad guy. Put yourself in harm's way. If he thinks you need him I SWEAR, he will be there.'

John can stand it no longer. He springs to his feet, adrenaline shooting up, circulating all over his body. "Need your car, Mrs H."

"John?" Mrs Hudson probes in a shrill voice.

"Now!" John barks, startling the lady off her feet.

"Downstairs," she confesses, turning to get the keys. And as John whirls down the stairs she follows, tossing them to him, "Be calm."

John drives like a monster across the city, left hand gripping the steering wheel and right hand holding the phone to his ears, calling Lestrade, "Please, I don't think he's safe."

"No, he's fine. I've got a man at the door," Lestrade states, sounding slightly worried. "Wh-what do you think's happened?"

"I don't know. Something. Mary left a message."

"What message?" Lestrade asks in doubt.

Yeah, what message? A message telling John to save Sherlock. The question is, can he?

By the time John gets to the hospital, the sergeant is gone and the door is locked. He immediately acquires an extinguisher and mashes the door open, seeing Culverton Smith jump from the chair beside Sherlock's bed.

"What the hell are you doing here?" John grabs his lapels and yanks him onto the wall.

"Just in to say hi," Smith raises his hands. "I should be asking, what are you doing breaking into my hospital? Last time I checked, you're the suspect of a physical assault. You not allowed anywhere near the victim."

The word stings John's heart but he doesn't flinch. "I'm not under arrest and no charges are pressed so technically I'm free. And this is none of your business so get the hell away from my friend," he snarls through gritted teeth.

Surprised by the toughness in his own tone, John retracts his hands and lets go of the smaller man. Smith leaves the room with a smug smirk on his lips.

John pulls the chair closer to the bed and sits down. Sherlock is still perfectly unconscious, and with his heart rate wavering around 40 he's unlikely to wake up any time soon. John watches Sherlock for a while, the unsteady rise and fall of his chest with his breathing. His face can never have been paler apart from the bruises, cheek bones protruding and eyes sunken, jaw smudged with stubble. When has Sherlock become so gaunt? He locked himself in the flat for a month, injecting into himself frantic doses of drugs that compromised both his kidneys, but what for? Was it grief? If John himself could drink through the night then why wouldn't Sherlock—No, he would never without cause risk his own life that had cost Mary's. Then why did he do this to himself?

"To end up in this hospital." John whips his head up at Mary's input. She stands at the foot of Sherlock's bed.

"Yes. Yes because you told him to."

"But I never expected the way he did it."

"No he didn't even have to do it. I put him in here. I nearly beat him to death. You saved his life and I tried to undo it. I'm so, so sorry—" he clenches the blanket in his hands, unable to decide which is more heartbreaking: Sherlock suffering in a hospital bed or Mary dying in his arms. He takes a few audible deep breaths, "But he killed you and I'm angry. I don't blame myself for being angry."

"Was that how you felt when I shot him?" Mary asks quietly.

John nods, biting on his lower lip, unsure what to say.

"Well, glad we're even," Mary says with a smirk.

"Don't say that," John snaps.

"No, you are, seeing as I'm inside your head."

"Exactly," John emphasises the second syllable. "You're dead and he's alive. He's my friend and you're my wife. I forgave you because I love you. That one reason is enough."

"Is that why he's less important than I am?" Mary gazes into John's eyes.

"That's not what I'm saying," John lowers his eyes, frustrated.

"Then why can't you forgive him too?" There's a desperate inquiry in her tone.

"Because he made a vow!" John snaps again, clenching his teeth. "He swore it! He swore to protect you, to protect the three of us, and—"

"He has been protecting us," Mary interrupts. "He jumped to save your life and you think the two years was easy for him? He tried to make it up for us even when I shot him, or wouldn't we have been divorced? Do you think we could live in peace with Rosie if he didn't kill Magnussen in exchange for his own death in Eastern Europe? With us he has been a different person and one time he wasn't and it was my turn to protect HIM. Of course I'd take it."

John avoids Mary's eyes without saying a word. She's right, all of it is true. He's been expecting too much from Sherlock, and when that fails—he's not angry with Sherlock. He is angry with himself.

"And I did it because I know how important he is to you, John," Mary softens her voice and continues. "He's no less important than me. I knew that. I also knew I wasn't to live long and I put all of you in danger. And I believed that you were able to let it go and move on, that you could live without me."

"But I wasn't, was I? I failed you," John looks to Sherlock again. "Am I a monster?"

"Yes," Mary nods, half joking. "But you're my monster, both of you are."

John smiles a bitter smile.

Then Mary's grin turns into a serious look, "John, you're my whole world, but I'm not yours, never have been. That's why this isn't the end of the world, so I need you to live on. Can you do that?"

John nods silently. All can't be clearer. Mary is dead but he still has Sherlock. Half of his world is torn, perished, but the other half is filling it up, slowly and agonisingly.

"I love you," he says without looking at Mary, a tear rolling down the side of his face.

"I love you too," it's almost inaudible, like foam that dissolves into air. And when John looks back to where she was standing, she's gone.

John sits back in the chair, deluging himself in the rhythmic beeping and clicking of the machines attached to Sherlock, as if he was back to his medical school years, when these noises were no more than thrilling wonders of medicine, when he was filled with the excitement of saving lives, and solemnly took the oath that he would never hurt one, only it was long broken.

He must have fell asleep some time later, for it is the warming sunlight that woke him. He straightens up in the chair, stretching against the sore in his back. Sherlock's eyes flicker open at the sound, head turning rigidly towards John.

"Sherlock?" John sounds out. He's afraid of the fear and guilt in Sherlock's eyes, but thank God they just looked weary and drowsy. "How are you feeling?"

Sherlock wets his lips and swallows, trying to shift in bed but wincing. Pain is obvious on his face. "Fine," he croaks.

"No you're not, not even close," John almost grins despite the guilt surging through him. "I owe you an apology. I'm sorry, Sherlock."

"It's alright."

"No. none of this, is alright," John states seriously. "What I did was unforgivable."

"I forgive you because…you're entitled," Sherlock struggles to meet John's eyes. Now the guilt is apparent.

"No you don't!" John snaps, springing to his feet. "You died, twice! Three times to me, and you would've died a fourth time if Moriarty didn't hack into the bloody screens and a fifth time if I didn't get here in time. And it's all for me, or for Mary. You risk your life for us, which I took for granted because—because you swore it. You made a vow at the wedding, so I put all my trust in you—"

"Turns out you shouldn't have," Sherlock interrupts. He voice strains but the guilt is obvious. "I killed Mary."

John takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down, then sits back into the chair, "Mary killed you, for 23 minutes. You were dead for twenty three minutes, but you pulled through and you told me to forgive her, and how could I not? She was my wife, she was bearing my child, and I loved her so much. I still do, and there's no guilt in that. I know you understand that, Sherlock, I know."

They fall into long enough silence that John thinks Sherlock has fallen asleep, but when Sherlock's eyes reopen John exhales deeply and the words come out flowing, "You didn't kill Mary. Mary died saving your life. No one made her do it, and no one could've known she _would_ do it, not even you. You made a mistake of being your old self, whom you hadn't been since you came back, or with me and Mary. But we all make mistakes and we wouldn't if we knew the consequences would we?"

"But it was my fault," Sherlock rasps.

"Didn't say it wasn't, but you didn't, kill, Mary. She saved your life and I'm proud of her, I really am," John's lips quirks into a light smile.

"I'm sorry Sherlock. I know you don't blame me but nothing you say will release me of the guilt, so I have to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it nearly took your life again for me to realize that she wasn't my whole world, but you are, now, because she sacrificed her life for yours. Do you see what I'm saying? No I didn't mean that you should live Mary's life. Just—" he draws in a deep breath. "I love you. I love both of you, always have."

Then he pauses shortly, to rethink about his own words, and goes on, "I was angry, when she—half of me was ripped away, but you're my other half. I just—I'm so, so sorry that I hurt you, Sherlock."

John leans forward and buries his face in the blanket, letting his tears flow freely into the cloth. Sherlock's chest rises as he draws in another effortful breath, tilting his head a tiny bit towards John, his eyes slack. Then he hesitantly raises his left hand and runs his fingers through John's hair, "It's okay."

"It's not okay," John whimpers through the blanket.

"No, but it is what it is."

After a while John raises his head and grasps Sherlock's hand, "Promise me you'll live."

"What?" Sherlock gives a frail whisper, puzzled.

"Promise me you'll stay alive and well Sherlock," John earnestly looks into the detective's eyes. "You're not allowed to die before I do, okay? This is—this is important. This is the last thing I ask you to do, for me and Mary," his voice breaks as tears refill his eyes.

Sherlock's chest rises as he draws in another effortful breath, tilting his head a tiny bit towards John, his eyes slack. "I promise," he whispers, before letting himself drift off with his hand gripped in John's.


End file.
